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The Rewritten-PDFKit Edition Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Sierra PDF Problems Get Worse In 10.12.2, by Adam C. Engst, TidBITS

"The primary problem with Sierra with respect to PDFs is that Apple chose to rewrite the PDFKit framework in macOS 10.12 and it broke a number of things that PDF-related developers relied upon." [...]

If editing a PDF in Preview in unavoidable, be sure to work only on a copy of the file and retain the original in case editing introduces corruption of any sort.

What Apple Gives You For $100 As A Safari Extension Developer — and Why Reddit Enhancement Suite May Cease Support For Safari, by honestbleeps, Medium

The reality is that if your only interest is developing browser extensions, you now have to pay $100 for something that you could previously do for free, with no real usable benefit or improvement to the system. In fact, it became materially worse.

AirPods Reset Fixes Charging Case Battery Issues For Some, But Issues Persist For Others, by Mitchel Broussard, MacRumors

The fact that a software reset works for some users has lead to hope that Apple may address the battery drainage issue in the form of a firmware update for the AirPods sometime in the future, but the company hasn't commented on the problem or mentioned whether or not AirPods will be updated through iOS at all.

Stuff

Apple Announces Chinese New Year Event Featuring Free Beats Solo3 Headphones With Mac Or iPhone Purchase, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

Apple today announced an upcoming one-day sale in celebration of Chinese New Year, where the company will provide free Beats Solo3 Wireless On-Ear Headphones in red to all customers who purchase a select Mac or iPhone in various countries around the world.

Review: Bear App Makes Note-taking A Pleasure, by Jessica Holland, The National

Rather than using folders, like Notes, Bear organises users’ writing with hashtags, meaning each note can be sorted into multiple categories.

Review: Taking Your iPhone 7/7 Plus Photography Further With Aukey’s Wide-Angle Ora Lens, by Greg Barbosa, 9to5Mac

Overall, the Aukey Ora Lens isn’t perfect, but it’s hard to pass up as a starter lens for interested hobby photographers. It’s solid construction and low price point make it extremely attractive.

Review: Parallels Desktop 12 For Mac Shows Why A Virtual Machine Matters, by Daniel Rasmus, Geekwire

Parallels should be thought of as the virtual machine that makes running most operating systems possible within Apple’s Macintosh platform. For most developers, virtualizing target platforms might just be their dream environment.

Notes

Apple’s 2016 In Review, by Chuq Von Rspach

This is worrisome on a number of levels and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m used to watching people kvetch about the company, but this seems — different. One reason: a lot of the criticisms are correct.

Apple, for the first time in over a decade, simply isn’t firing on all cylinders. Please don’t interpret that as “Apple is doomed” because it’s not, but there are things it’s doing a lot less well than it could — and has. Apple’s out of sync with itself.

Growing A Better Apple, by Vindu Goel, New York Times

Founded in 2014 by three former senior managers from Apple’s iPod and iPhone groups, Pearl has tried to replicate what its leaders view as the best parts of Apple’s culture, like its fanatical dedication to quality and beautiful design. But the founders also consciously rejected some of the less appealing aspects of life at Apple, like its legendary secrecy and top-down management style.

Bottom of the Page

On the one hand, my eyes are not getting younger, and a phone with a bigger screen definitely will be useful...

On the other hand, my pockets are not getting bigger.

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Thanks for reading.